For this report, Thomson Reuters Web of Science Database (WoS) was taken as the source of publications. Data were tracked during March of 2024 to retrieve publications of the year 2024. Topic including the title, abstract and keywords were taken as the searching fields. Keywords tracked included biomimicry, biomimetic, biomimetics, biomimic, bio-inspired, bioinspired, bionic, nature-inspired, biologically inspired, bioinspiration, bio-inspiration, and biomimicking. The rankings of different countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals and research areas were generated based on the final number of published papers.

General

The total number of research papers retrieved in 2024 was 13,431 with 188 highly cited papers and 9 hot papers. The growth trend indicated that biomimetic research has got a boost in 2024 with a growth rate of about 20% compared to 2023 and about 60% compared to 2020 (Table 1). The terminology “biomimetic” has always been the most commonly used keyword in the field, while the keywords biomimic, bio-inspiration, and biomimicking were seldom used.

Table1 The number of biomimetic research papers retrieved in WoS 

Countries/Regions Distribution

In 2024, there were 116 countries and regions in total involved in the publishing of biomimetic research papers, among which the top 20 covered over 87% of the total papers, while the rest only accounted for nearly 13% (Fig 1). The top 10 countries were mainly distributed in P. R. China, the United States, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Australia, France and Japan (Table 2). Currently, bionic researches are still restricted to a few countries/regions with long-term research foundation in this field.

                                            
  Fig 1 Distribution of biomimetic research papers among different countries/regions in 2024

Table 2 The top 20 countries/regions in 2024 (The number included co-authored papers)

Institutions Distribution

There were 16 institutions in total publishing 150 or more biomimetic research papers in 2024 (Table 3), the top 10 of which covers Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Jilin University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, Sichuan University, Indian Institute of Technology System, Tsinghua University, University of Science Technology of China, and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. According to the results, 80% of the top 100 institutions were from China and the United States, in which China accounts for 68% (Fig 2). 

Table 3 The top 16 institutions in 2024 (The number included co-authored papers)

Fig 2 Distribution of top 100 institutions among different countries in 2024

Authors Distribution

The bibliometric software of CiteSpace was used to analyze the authors’ distribution in the field of biomimetics in 2024. The software could not accurately distinguish the affiliations to which the authors belong, resulting in the unexpected publication accumulation of different authors with same name. After carefully identification and verification, the top 13 core authors in the field in 2024 had been obtained as showed in Table 4.   

 Table 4 The top 13 authors in 2024

Journals Distribution

Based on the statistics of source titles, the top 20 journals were shown in Table 5. It can be seen that in recent years more and more biomimetic achievements have been published in the high-level journals such as Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Nature Communications, Advanced Science, etc., indicating that bimimetic research has received more and more attention from academic fields.

Table 5 The top 20 journals in 2024

Currently, there are 11 professional journals in total in bionic/biomimetics field, and 9 of which have been already indexed by SCI/SCIE (Table 6). Since 2021, China has newly founded three bionics-related journals, including Cyborg and Bionic Systems (founded by Beijing Institute of Technology), Biomimetic Intelligence and Robotics (founded by Shandong University), and Advanced Bionics (founded by Jilin University). The first two journals focus on the research fields of bionic robotics and artificial intelligence, while the latter one aims to create a comprehensive leading journal. All three journals have been selected for the High-start New Journals Project of the Excellence Action Plan for Chinese Science and Technology Journals, further reflecting the country's emphasis on bionics research and policy support.

Table 6 The professional journals in the field of biomimetics

Areas Distribution

In 2024, 137 research areas defined by the WoS are involved in biomimetic research, and mainly distributed in the fields of engineering, materials science, chemistry, science and technology-other topics (Table 7). Biomimetics is a highly interdisciplinary domain, and its research methods involve most of the disciplines of science and engineering. Therefore, it is of great significance to promote multidisciplinary intersection and accelerate the development of biomimetics.

Table 7 Research area distribution of biomimetic research papers in 2024

Conclusion

The increasing number of biomimetic research papers included by WoS indicated that the global biomimetic research activities have been rapidly increasing in recent years, and the countries and institutions engaged in biomimetic research have also been on the rise. As a hotspot in scientific research in the new century, biomimetics has been attracting extensive attention of more countries and scholars and will play an increasingly important role in industrial and agricultural production, scientific and technological development, and national defense construction.

(by ISBE Secretariat)